I think the only real issue in the pack is Gendustry. I agree with the other players, by them saying it has produced more of the problems in the pack. TT Kami is good in that it offers another setup of "End Game" for people that aren't remotely interested in IC2/GT, but Gendustry removed the challenge in obtaining many things for TT Kami. In 1.4, when I did bees, I needed to ensure that I had the time and supplies in order to get up certain bee branches to do anything. In 1.6, I still use ExtraBees Machines, however I believe Gendustry ruins the game. With Gendustry, first day I messed with bees, I had up both Withering & Pyro bees, with nearly perfect traits. I switched to mostly using ExtraBees, because it's a set up I'm more familiar with. However it's more getting off topic, as far as removing bees or bee species goes, I think it's a bad idea. When Gendustry was first debuffed, it threw many people off of using bees altogether, by not having Gendustry or as I like to call it, no skill beekeeping, less people were doing bees. Also at the same point, I think Gendustry is a good mod, as it does add another thing to the game that adds to helping people out, and at same time allowing people to do something without needing to add stress to the server. If I were to rebalance the mod, I would make power requirements really high on the mutatron, as well as making samples and templates break after so many uses. I would also require many things in the mod to require more high end bee products, therefore adding to the time to mess about with that mod. Something Skynet said also piqued my interests in agreement with, maybe adding things that don't necessarily add tech to the game, but add fun to the server or even small distractions. I for one miss mods like Pac-Man arcade, Harvestcraft, and even world gen mods like Natura, and wild caves or for a better mod, underground biomes, because they add things to look at, do or even have fun with. Other things I could suggest is an alternative to using GT/IC2, don't really know what to suggest, but those two mods have felt less and less fun on every iteration of them lately, and I think a mod that accomplished what they do, but in a different way could really re-add to the fun of the game. As far as my opinion, I'm not really too keen on the idea of a world reset, especially this early as I've been enjoying our base and really dislike the idea of changes like that, because of the work me and my basemates have put towards our base and home.
Taking out Gendustry at this point will not help the situation. The Bee's are already made, a simple switch to extra bee's will be pretty quick and painless. You will quickly see a trading of serums and trait isolation happen and we will still be in the same situation. I have plenty of bee's to get all the traits needed. A map reset will be needed. To SK's point thought, we need NEW and interesting things. I personally would like to see a CTF arena or King of the Hill. Something to break the monotony of building machines up. Take the Bazzar for example, I see many folks wanting build cool and neat "shops" even if they don't have tradomats in them. But Sk if you are looking for a MOD to build contraptions that have no instructions than I think Rotary Craft is your winner. I'm all for expanding options, maybe a bungee corded adventure map, like Lord of the Rings mod?
Long post, feel free to disregard. Honestly I could care less about a reset. But if after the reset TT and KAMI were removed I would be gone in an instant. Yes, it is OP. Honestly I think that is a little bit of what is needed. People have gone mad with this "OMG OMG OP PLZ NERF". TC/TT/KAMI has allowed my to have a crapton of fun without killing the server. I can enjoy myself and actually build instead of making sprawling contraptions to process massive amounts of resources to get the one little step closer to "end game" even though there is not really a point to reaching end game if by the time you get there you are sick and tired of it and just get burnt out so you end up quitting till the next restart when you get there, instead of hanging out and enjoying the community. I don't get the point of adding so many steps and processes to reach "end game" that it takes weeks of daily gameplay to reach. Most other games you spend maybe 20 hours to reach end game, not 3 weeks or more. All this "Endgame" speak has removed the sandbox from the sandbox game known as minecraft, it has removed the infinite possibilities that come with the game and replaced them with a monstrosity of an ideal that can never really be achieved. Not to mention that the harder we are making it on the players to reach "end game" the harder we are making it on the server, due to the fact that the only way to make it harder is for it to require more resources or more steps, both of which harm the server even more. Right now I can gather resources for my pet project shroomtown easily. If I were stuck with IC2/TE/Gregtech then what I am doing would pretty much be impossible, or if done would take over a month just to get where I am now. TT/KAMI was not an easy achievement, it was not cheap and it most certainly was not fast. Honestly the way it is set up is nice. Take note, how "cheap" people say KAMI is, yet notice how few of the KAMI items are for sale in the bazaar. Thats right. NONE, zip, zero, nada. They are a PITA to make. Even when you have all the resources in the world, you look at making a set of KAMI armor/tools and just shudder. You don't want to do it, at all. Nobody could even pay you enough to do it. You really think something is OP when someone can't pay you enough to make it for them? I could go buy gravi suits off of one of several people on the server right now, and they would just order them up from their AE without so much as a second thought. How many people have KAMI armor/tools that did not do the research themselves? I admit a few, but they are groups working together, one taking IC2 the other Thaumcraft but the items are not being sold/given to new players. These items will never flood a market or become cheap due to the fact of how they are made. My last point is I truly believe right now TC/TT/KAMI is the reason why server performance is even reasonable at the moment. It allows people to be comfortable and reach an alternate (and IMO better) "end game" without murdering the server.
Exactly. Most of us were playing on SKCraft before TC, TT or KAMI, and we will still be here when those and many other mods are gone. I almost want to see these mods removed, just so I can rub this quote in your face when you log after the next reset.
A map reset is what is on the table, but I'm not sure if it's happening because it's a lot of work for everyone. Once again, I remind everyone that I did not do the last two modpacks. None of the decisions regarding the balancing were handled by me. If you played older Alice modpacks, you know that I removed tedious recipes and always made sure everything was a comfortable balance. Therefore I am not suggesting adding tedium to anything. I literally have no interest in end games. I have never made IC2 quantum armor. I have never made GraviSuite. I have never made fusion reactors. I never will. I will make all the infrastructure and build up all the buildings to contain it all, but then I will be done. The reason I am using the phrase "end game" is because it's easily understood as "completing the mods." The goal is not to stretch it out in an unreasonable manner. For a non-creative pursuit though, you must define an end game. It's possible for an end game to be too short. For a lot of people, creative mode in MC makes the path "end game" too short. On the other hand, end game can take too long to reach. The idea is to strike the right balance. It is from what I hear that Gendustry moves the end game backwards and makes one track of the game far too short. On the other hand, GregTech makes the end game in another track too long. You literally get the worst of two worlds.
So was I, but that was also from a time before gregtech, and I would like to see that removed due to it becoming just rediculous. (</sarcasm>)
Gendustry might be an overpowered hunk of junk ... but also, Alvearies are one of the most laggy blocks in the entire game, so to speak. They are fused tile entitys, and we all know how well that goes... I think if you choose to do a reset, bees have to either go entirely, or Gendustry needs to be kept, but thoroughly rebalanced. (Im talking about increasing power cost, makeing samples and templates harder to craft, making labware ALOT harder to craft, making Mutagen hard to get - shit like that) That beeing said - balance changes wont stop people from reaching endgame, or even reaching endgame quickly - it will only make them need more machinery to make it work (which is not good for the server)
Really would like to avoid losing bees as well, I'll still play without, but they add a really fun dimension of the game for me. Alvearies aren't really too much of a problem in my opinion, especially with the loss of gendustry, many players will refuse bees or will learn the hard way of them, and it will go back to what it was before. Also in my opinion, back to what Sk said, I think the balance of the game is really somewhat broken. You have two sides of the same bad coin, either way you lose currently, gendustry makes the game too easy, GT makes it too hard. I'm not mentioning TT Kami or TC in general at all, because GT in this version drove many people to bees and TC, which coupled with gendustry, has only further created more problem and strife. Finally I think that no matter what people say, 1.4 was the best of the modpacks, that I've played, it had the most balance as far as mods go, it wasn't too easy, yet it wasn't too hard, it was the perfect blend of challenge needed to whet the appetite to keep you coming back. It also had the perfect balance of tech and fun mods to keep adding to an imaginative person.
I think Gendustry is very good. Originally it took longer and used more power, thus, made it harder. But taking out Gendustry just makes bees even harder. My definition of fun is having glots of stuff and being able to do whatever I want. Not going "Oh no, we are out of diamonds..." every 10 minutes. Maybe make Gendustry just a little bit harder, but I would not recommend it be removed (it would also p**s a hell of a lot of people off).
I think one of the major issues of the state-of-the game atm is laser drills and how they affect balancing. I've done some math at this and it turns out a laser drill is 1200x more effective at generating Iridium then a Mass Fabricator or Molecular Transformer respectively. The math on Iridium and Chrome in Laser drills if anyone is interested : http://pastebin.com/g9jRr2XM
I've said before that if GregTech and IC2 were removed I would not play Alice anymore. However, now that I have played more with Thermal Expansion I think I would be ok with removing GT and possibly IC2(for a different reason). Something I would like to point out here. Automation for gathering ores Automation for processing/crafting resources Automated resource gathering seems to be like cancer. RP2 frame bores, quarries, MFR Laser Drill, turtles, Arcane Bore, IC2 miners, and more that I probably haven't heard of. All of these have caused issues for the server in the past. Why not remove all forms of automated ore gathering? Including bees that generate ores and IC2 crops. Again there are probably other ways to automagically generate ore that I'm not aware of. What would happen if those were removed? Harvesters and other tree farm automation are just as bad but they don't seem to be as severe as ore gathering. So, what would happen if precious quarries are gone? Players would need to mine by hand. This is Minecraft after all. Mining by hand is slow, tedious, and sometimes dangerous. It also makes players more active. No more "AFK at the quarry". Manual mining reduces the rate that players are able to acquire ore. This reduces processing automation overall. Build lots of automation and your ores are processed quickly. Build a small automation and it takes longer, but without the heavy server load that would exist with more machines. Processing automation is supposed to increase the yield of mined ore. The more steps you have in your processing the more efficient the extraction of elements from the raw ore and higher yield. This is why I like GregTech. EDIT:Formatting
That is quite interesting... But I think a lot of people would be quite annoyed if their precious laser drills were nerfed/removed @buttonsinpjs SkCraft is an industrial server. I can't think of anything less industrial then having to swing a pick every time you want an ore... Also, think about how long it would take to do absolutely anything. Let's say you can go only go on the computer for a limited amount of time a day, you would spend 90% of your time mining and 10% crafting more pickaxes to go mining. Then that time you can build something. "Oh no, Got no rubies, gotta go mining".
Exactly! Gotta go mining so the next time I login I can build that really cool machine. MY OPINION BELOW If you don't like mining you should be playing creative.
Perhaps if you could limit the amount of automation (Can't have 20 quarries). Removing it entirely is just absurd.
In as much as Laser Drills are concerned, I wonder what could be accomplished by the removal of the Foci, or limiting Foci to one as opposed to six.
Why? Automated mining is a time saver, that's it. It has no other benefit. We might as well setup a trade-o-mat with the all the resources you get from the average quarry in a bag and just trade in a quarry once you craft it.
I think the obvious solution is to do away with all of the mods we have and lock SK in the basement until he creates a new questing system and some neat storyserver mechanics <3
